Kclug Digest, Vol 39, Issue 2

[Jack]

--- gary hildebrand <wa7kkp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Piracy happened when the cost of software (including
> o/s's)  was
> prohibitive.  Remember when a copy of Wordstar for
That's total BS or you're new to the software use
world, but since you speak of Wordstar. I suspect the
former. I hail back to the days of build-it-yourself
PCS. Yes, I know you can do that now. I'm speaking
about Sinclairs or was it Altairs? God age and memory
the two just don't go together. Anyway...
People have been pirating software for as long as
BBSes, external storage systems (tapes, diskettes,
etc) and the internet have existed. It has nothing to
do with cost. It has everything to do with what you
grew up believing was right or wrong and what you
personally have allowed yourself to consider
acceptable behavior.

For me, copying and sharing commercial software for
free is wrong. I won't call it piracy. It's copyright
violation.
Copying and selling commercial software is copyright
theft. If you're caught you deserve whatever
punishment the law says. If you do a crime you should
be willing to do the time.
Copying software you have paid for and use only on
your own personal home computers is fine, although
some would disagree with me on this. I consider this
fair use. But I also only have three people in my
house.
I do believe that if you then sell or give away one of
those computers, any software you do provide with it
should have it's own license.

If you are unwilling to pay for a product then don't
use it. I would expect that you would not consider
walking into a store and walking out with book without
paying for it acceptable behavior. Why would you think
it is acceptable behavior to do the equivalent thing
with software?
I can understand the frustration of wanting to play
Quake 2009, but not being able to because you need
UltraVista 2015 to run it, but that doesn't make it
anymore acceptable behavior.

Also, since I have had every version of Windows since
version 1.01. I have no problems with upgrading any of
my PCs to any version of Windows I own. I bought those
disks/CDs and any version after version 1 is an
upgrade, so I have literally a dozen or more Licenses
to Windows. While this may be a stretch, it's not an
issue because I don't run Windows, although my laptop
has a (currently broken) copy installed.

Lastly, I never, ever click on those license
agreements. If I have a license I must click through
and I don't agree to all the terms, I don't use it.
Someone else may come along and click that agreement,
but i won't. Once that has happened I have no problem
using it. This may also be a stretch, but then the
vile things should never have been upheld by judges,
and some are not. 


That's my $0.02.